The Health and Welfare Information Systems Center (TEHIK) operating under the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs has announced a public procurement for finding two developers for the National Social Insurance Board's service modernization project SKAIS for a period of three years, the estimated cost of the tender is 8 mln euros, informed LETA/BNS.

So far, the state has spent 15 mln euros on the development
of SKAIS. Offers can be made for the new tender until Feb. 20, the aim, if
possible, is to enter into framework contracts with two bidders who will start
developing the public services of the social protection insurance field and
carry out work related to the services, it appears from the procurement notice.

The planned duration of the framework agreements is three
years and the estimated cost is 8 mln euros. The task will be to implement the
continuation developments of SKAIS2 for the realization of missing
functionalities, including the development of the X-Road interfaces between
information systems and the development of interfaces between business
components, developing supplements and changes and developing new
services abd data migration from SKAIS1.

In April of last year, framework contracts in the amount of
10 mln euros were established with AS Nortal and OU Trinidad Wiseman for
carrying out the development of the second version of SKAIS. Nortal's task is
to tidy up the architecture of SKAIS, implement the continuation developments
of SKAIS2 for the realization of missing functionalities, the maintenance of
the SKAIS software and the carrying out of other tasks.

The task of the second tender winner, Trinidad Wiseman, is
designing the user interfaces for citizens, service providers and officials.

"It is necessary to find additional partners to
ensure the possibility of developing the functionalities of various services in
parallel. The wish is to complete the services as quickly as possible in order
to save the state's resources and offer users better solutions," it is
said in the procurement document.

According to the Public Procurement Register, there have
been no violations regarding the contracts entered into with Trinidad Wiseman
and Nortal.

The Social Insurance Board in summer 2017 decided to
terminate an agreement on the development of information systems for the Social
Insurance Board concluded with the Estonian arm of the Finnish IT group Tieto
several years ago on the grounds that deadlines are not met and there are many
errors. Tieto received over 5 mln euros under the agreement from
Estonia.

The Ministry of Social Affairs, Tieto Estonia AS and OU
Icefire in October 2017 concluded a compromise whereby the Estonian
arm of Tieto will paid the state 270,000 euros for the failure of the
SKAIS2 project. Initially, the Ministry of Social Affairs sought a fine of
855,000 euros from Tieto.

SKAIS2 is the Estonian National Social Insurance Board's
service modernization project, during which the board's IT systems will be
modernized, user friendly services for people will be developed and the board's
organization of work will be improved.

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